The Music Never Stopped – Roots of the Grateful Dead

During my high school years I spent many a Saturday afternoon trolling through about a dozen record stores on the Yonge Street strip of downtown Toronto. My friend and I would hop on the train and ride in from the suburbs along Lake Ontario. Now high school is ancient history, and so are the record stores. Sam the Record Man – a Toronto landmark – was the last to go, closing its doors with a massive clearance sale in June 2007.

Sam’s location was the vinyl Mecca of the city, with other Canadian chains hosting their flagship stores there as well: A&A, Sunrise, and Music World. While these stores carried a wide variety of new and used LP’s, it was the smaller independent stores that I liked to frequent. Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum and Incredible Records were two regular haunts I could count on for my musical education, getting tips about the roots of modern music – especially blues – from the aging hipsters who ran the stores.

The Yonge Street strip was also littered with head shops and swag stores selling smoking implements, incense holders, candles, and a plethora of posters and t-shirts. I bought a Steal Your Face Grateful Dead t-shirt from one of these stores without knowing anything about the band and its legion of deadheads. I just liked the design. I had no idea that wearing this t-shirt was the equivelant of a social calling card to other deadheads. Wearing this shirt into several record stores eventually led to conversations about the band and its music and I was introduced to their American Beauty LP much like the Lindsay character in the defunct cult TV show, “Freaks and Geeks“. A couple of years later I went to my first Grateful Dead show and became immersed in the deadhead culture.

I have always been interested in the roots of music, reading album liner notes (it was so much easier in the days of gatefold LP covers) to learn about the composers of songs and who recorded them first. Unlike numerous bands of their generation who ripped off songs from those who preceded them (usually white rockers ripping off black bluesmen), the Grateful Dead paid tribute to their roots by publishing this collection called:

The Music Never Stopped: Roots of the Grateful Dead

1) Rain And Snow – Obray Ramsey – 3:28
2) Mama Tried – Merle Haggard – 2:10
3) Iko Iko – The Dixie Cups – 2:03
4) Samson & Delilah – Rev. Gary Davis – 4:05
5) Big Railroad Blues – Cannon’s Jug Stompers – 3:20
6) El Paso – Marty Robbins – 4:22
7) It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – Bob Dylan – 4:13
8) Spoonful – Charlie Patton – 3:12
9) The Red Rooster – Howlin’ Wolf – 2:24
10) The Promised Land – Chuck Berry – 2:28
11) Don’t Ease Me In – Henry Thomas – 3:01
12) Big Boss Man – Jimmy Reed – 2:50
13) Turn On Your Love Light – Bobby “Blue” Band – 2:36
14) Morning Dew – Bonnie Dobson – 4:06
15) Not Fade Away – Buddy Holly – 2:21
16) Goin’ Down This Road Feelin’ Bad – Woody Guthrie – 2:48
17) I Bid You Good Night – Joseph Spence – 2:51